Starting from Scratch with FI, by Andrea Lo

Founder Feedback gives you insights from the startup trenches. In a guest blog post that ran on Women 2.0 today, Andrea Lo (Founder of Piggybackr) describes how the Founder Institute was just what she needed to start her first company.

"A year ago, I was working in a corporate consulting job crunching numbers and pushing papers, struggling to find a larger sense of purpose. Today, I am busier and happier than ever, founder of my own early stage startup with the help of the Founder Institute...

For me, it was the small push I needed to get me going. I spent a full year looking for that dream job that always seemed to elude me. Until one day, I finally had a breakthrough when a mentor asked me “Andrea, if you want to make a real impact, why don’t you just start your own thing?” That marked the first time I began to consider the possibility. I had secretly dreamed of being a female CEO, but never seriously laid out the steps it would take to get there...

I went into the Founder Institute with a fuzzy and subpar travel idea embarrassed to present it on the first day and found my business background self, intimidated by the engineers and product managers in the program. My own aunt even asked me, “Andrea, you have no engineering or teaching background. How do you plan to start your own education website?” But week after week, I worked hard, soaked things up like a sponge, adapted to feedback, and made progress...

The point is that, you don’t have to wait 5 or 10 years until you have more experience or have that perfect idea. You learn so much more by doing and your first idea is going to change anyway."

Andrea is in under the "12" below, in this picture of the San Francisco Graduating class:

PiggyBackr, a website that focuses on empowering kids age 8-14, is a Graduate of the San Francisco Founder Institute. The company is currently looking for parents, teachers, and designers experienced in UX/ UI design for kids. Follow Andrea Lo on Twitter at @andretlo.